Mallory Swanson is making her case again. The Chicago Stars FC forward earned a spot on the NWSL Team of the Week after another commanding performance, cementing her status as the most compelling offensive presence in the league this season.
The weekly honors, selected by the Attacking Third podcast crew, recognized the best individual performances across the NWSL over the past week's action. Swanson's inclusion was among the headlining selections, a recognition that surprised nobody who watched Chicago this week. When she's locked in, she doesn't just score — she reshapes how opposing defenses organize themselves.
Meanwhile, in Portland, the Thorns took time to honor Tobin Heath, a gesture that carried genuine weight. Heath is one of the most gifted and idiosyncratic players American soccer has ever produced — a dribbler of rare invention, a figure whose influence on the women's game extended well beyond statistics. How exactly Portland honored her wasn't incidental; for a club with the Thorns' history and fanbase, the decision to publicly recognize Heath signals an awareness of their own legacy and what it means to the supporters who built that culture over more than a decade.
Swanson and Heath represent two different chapters of American women's soccer, and this particular week placed them both in the same conversation. Swanson is the present tense — a 2023 World Cup standout who returned to club play with something to prove and has been proving it. Heath is the connective tissue between eras, a player whose prime coincided with the Thorns' rise to national prominence and whose stylistic influence still shows up in how younger players approach the game.
For the NWSL, weeks like this one matter. The league has spent years demanding to be taken seriously on its own terms, not as a footnote to the national team calendar or a warmup for the next Olympics cycle. A Team of the Week that generates genuine conversation — about Swanson's form, about Heath's legacy, about what Chicago and Portland are building — is exactly the kind of sustained attention the league needs heading deeper into the season.
The Stars will need Swanson performing at this level if they intend to compete for silverware. And Portland, by honoring Heath, reminded their supporters that the club understands what it is and where it came from — which, in professional sports, is never as simple as it sounds.